


There's An Aching In My Skin

by orphan_account



Series: High School Peter [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Iron dad and Spider son, Minor Character Death, Multi, Other, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter needs a father figure, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Pre-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Peter Parker, Spider-Man: Homecoming Spoilers, Spiderson needs Irondad, Tony Stark Has A Heart, at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-24 23:54:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17714084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Peter get's bitten by a radioactive Spider and gains powers most only dream of having. Tragedy strikes. Opportunity arises. Peter learns that you have to keep living.





	There's An Aching In My Skin

**Author's Note:**

> This will be a basic retelling of the events that led to Peter becoming Spider-Man and through Spiderman homecoming with some personal thoughts and things I wanted to throw in there. Then explaining how Tony and Peter became close. I needed to get this one out before I continued on with the series of Peter/Spider-Man and Tony.

At fourteen years old, Peter Parker had just started his high school career at Midtown: School of Science and Technology. A genius school, although Peter would never call it that. Peter didn’t believe himself to be above average at anything. In fact, Peter was quite clumsy when it came to athletics or even daily life and was considered by his peers to be somewhat of a nerd, so he was very glad to find that he excelled enough in his studies to get into such a prestigious school, especially since his best friend would also be attending Midtown High.

Peter and his best friend Ned Leeds spent their days together like many other fourteen-year old’s would- staring at their phones and sending each other the latest memes, watching movies, building Lego sets, studying and doing homework, and had both signed up to be on their school’s academic decathlon team. 

Peter’s home life differed only slightly from the average American teenager. Peters parents had passed when he was a young boy. To be honest, Peter hardly remembered them. After the tragedy had occurred the only family members that Peter had were his Aunt May and uncle Ben Parker, thus Peter had been sent to live with them.

Since Peter spent most of his life with his aunt and uncle caring for him, he didn’t feel as though he’d missed out on having parental figures in his life. They gave Peter everything he needed- a home, food, clothes, a good education, and most importantly a loving family. Ben and May had never planned to have any biological children but were more than willing to take Peter in when needed. They had loved Peter with all of their hearts since before he was even born.

Only one month into the school year Peter’s class was going on their first field trip. Ned and Peter were thrilled to get out of school and go see a lab where real scientists worked every day on cutting edge experiments and technology! When the class entered the facility, they had been given strict orders not to touch anything and to stay with their group. Peter had had to ask his teacher for a bathroom break midway through one of the labs and the teacher, being just as engrossed in the science of it all as the students were, dismissed Peter to go on his own and told him to hurry back. On his way to find the restrooms, Peter had stumbled upon an empty lab and hadn’t been able to stop himself from checking it out. 

Peter flicked the lights on and saw that inside the lab were many aquariums, but not with fish inside. Spiders. Peter quickly found himself wanting to exit the room, his arachnophobia overpowering his curiosity. As Peter grabbed the door handle a spider fell from the ceiling onto his hand and immediately buried its fangs into Peters skin. The bite really hurt, and Peter flung the spider onto the ground and noticed it had died.   
Peter then made his way to the bathroom feeling a bit queasy and hot. Inside the restroom Peter felt as though he may pass out, so he sat for a while until the feeling passed and then left the restroom to make his way back to the group.

When he found his classmates, Ned had looked at him concerned, asking if he were alright, as he’d been gone quite a while and he was looking a bit pale and clammy. Peter shrugged his shoulders and assured his best friend that he was just fin and he may just have a slight stomach bug, but he didn’t want their teachers to know, as he wanted to finish the tour. Peter finished the field trip and took the subway home trying to ignore the way the skin around the spider bite ached.

The next couple weeks proved to be very interesting for Peter as he found that the skin on his hands and feet could stick to surfaces. His athletic abilities seemed to have developed over night and Peter’s endurance was much higher in PE. He could run faster, climb higher, do push-ups and pull-ups, and life weights without a problem. Peter of course had capped the weight lifting at a reasonable heaviness, though the boy knew he could do much more.  
Peter’s senses had also become better. Everything looked so much brighter and clearer than before. Everything was louder and more precise. Peter thought to himself that his senses seemed to have been dialed to eleven. It made it hard to focus. 

Peter was a smart boy, so it hadn’t taken him long to figure that the spider that had bitten him had been enhanced somehow and upon injecting its poison into him, had spread its enhancement to his bloodstream. Peter almost felt bad for killing the spider now, almost. 

For a month Peter had spent most of his free time finding places to be alone after school to hone his new abilities and figure out how strong he was and what he could use these powers for. Peter, being the good boy he was, only wanted to use this for good. He wanted to help people. He wanted to be like the Avengers.

Peter Parker remembers very well the day Tony Stark announced he was Iron Man. Peter also remembers the big mess that was New York a few years later when the Avengers fought the battle against Loki and won, thanks to Iron Man’s stupid self-sacrificing bravery. Peter thought all of the Avengers were awesome, but Tony Stark and Bruce Banner topped his list because of their amazing scientific knowledge. He aspired to be like them. Maybe, Peter thought, now that he could do things that most people couldn’t do, maybe now that he was enhanced, he could join the Avengers, but no. The Avengers would never let a fourteen-year-old kid on their team, and Peter wasn’t even close to having the kind of training they had, so first he’d need to get himself ready and maybe in a few years he could join in on a battle with his heroes.

Peter went home and rummaged through his clothing. He picked out some clothes and got to work making himself a Spider suit. He chose the colors red and blue. He fashioned some goggles in just the right way so that they could calm his enhanced vision and keep him focused. He made sure his face would be fully covered, if he was going to be a superhero, he didn’t want anyone doubting him because he was a kid. If he was scared, he didn’t want anyone to see. 

Peter began going out each night in his homemade suit and looking for anything he could use his powers to help with. So far, he had mainly saved stray cats and dogs from being run over or taken to kill shelters. But Peter quickly realized that if he were to try and help people, he would need a quicker means of escape that sticking himself to the side of a building and crawling up or just running away, and that’s when Peter got to work on his web fluid. A spider needed a web, right?

Peter had thought long and hard on what he wanted his alter-ego to be called and he had settled on Spider-Man. Simple and to the point. It was perfect. Peter had just about perfected his web fluid and was planning on trying it out that night. Peter had called his uncle and asked him to come pick him up from his “study session with Ned” at the library around nine o’clock.

Ben had left their apartment early on his way to pick up Peter, so he could stop by the bank and get some money out. The bank was right across the street from the Public Library. While Ben went through the ATM a mugger decided to pop out and demand Ben give him his money. Peter, waiting outside for his uncle, noticed the commotion across the street and froze when he realized what was happening. 

Peter couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, and couldn’t make himself move. He stood frozen in terror as he watched a masked man point a gun at his uncle. He wasn’t Spider-Man right now, he was just Peter Parker, and Peter Parker was just a child. The gunshot rang loud in Peter’s ears. Louder than anything he’d ever remembered hearing before and his vision blurred, blackness threatening to consume him. 

The mugger took off immediately and Peter regained enough composure to run across the street. He dialed 911 and begged them to get there and save his uncle. Ben looked Peter in the face, held his hand and told him he loved him and that it was all okay and to tell his aunt May that he loved her with all his heart. Peter sobbed, fat tears rolling down his cheeks as he told his uncle how much he loved him, and that help was on the way and to just please, please hang on, but Ben closed his eyes and they never opened again.

All Peter knew when the ambulance arrived was that Ben was dead. His uncle. The man who had helped to raise him. Peter welcomed the ache inside his chest. He deserved to hurt, it was all his fault. In his head, Peter couldn’t stop hearing it inside his head, the sound of the gunshot and the way his aunt May had screamed when the she’d come into the corners office to see her husband and pick up her nephew. Peter wasn’t Spider-Man. He wasn’t a hero. He was a coward, and he could’ve stopped it. He could’ve saved his uncle, but here he was sitting in a cold room watching his aunt sob over the body of his dead uncle. 

It had taken May three hours to be calm enough that they let her take Peter and go home. Home didn’t feel like home anymore. The months after proved to be the most painful of Peter’s young life. They had moved into a smaller apartment with cheaper rent. May had said it would be good for them to go somewhere new. Somewhere that didn’t hurt every time you walked in the door still expecting to be greeted by Ben’s bear hug. Somewhere that didn’t still smell like his cologne. Somewhere that Peter hadn’t been tucked into bed every night by his aunt and uncle. Somewhere that didn’t hold “I love you’s,” and empty promises of a future that would never be.  
May hadn’t smiled since that day, at least not a real smile. May was the kind of person that brought sunshine with her everywhere she went. She livened up every conversation. May love to laugh and her smile was contagious, at least it had been before Peter had let her husband die. Now May gave Peter a forced smile each morning as she went off to work and wished him a good day at school.

Peter had barely spoken since Ben’s passing. He blamed himself entirely and the thought of speaking to another human being after what he done, or more accurately, hadn’t done made him ill. Ned was the exception. Peter had sobbed to his best friend many times about how he should have stopped it. Of course, Ned assured him there was nothing he could have done and that he would have been dead too if he’d rushed over. Ned didn’t know about him being Spider-Man. Surely, Peter thought, if he did, he would blame me too. So, Peter had stopped talking much even to Ned and Ned had learned to tread carefully around Peter in the state he was in.

On a Saturday morning Peter woke up to the sounds of crying. He walked out of his room to find May clutching a picture of Ben. When May noticed Peter, she choked out that it would have been their twentieth anniversary and they were supposed to go to the place they had gone on their first date. They hadn’t been back since, and this was to be the perfect day of reminiscing about their love story. Sorrow overcame Peter and he barely whispered hat Ben’s last words were for him to tell May he loved her. Mays cries heightened, and she pulled Peter into a tight embrace. Peter was stiff but hugged his aunt back. Who was he to comfort her? This was all his fault. She shouldn’t love him. She shouldn’t hug him. She should hate him. May let go of Peter several minutes later and went into her bedroom, reappearing moments later with a wrapped box that she handed to Peter. May explained to Peter that Ben had gotten it for him and was planning to give it to him for his birthday but that Peter should open it early. It’s what Ben would want. 

The guilt tore at Peter’s insides, but it was the first genuine smile he’s seen on his aunts face in months and he wouldn’t deny her anything if it made he smile. Peter carefully unwrapped the small box and found that it was a science kit with many things included, the microscope had Peter’s name engraved. Peter loved it and didn’t deserve it at all. Peter expressed his absolute ‘joy’ about all of it to his aunt and carried the box of items to his room feeling ill. Peter grabbed the card from out of the box and tore the envelope open, careful not to rip where Ben had written his name. The card read- Peter. ”My nephew, I love you with all my heart. I want you to know that you’ll always be my superhero. Be careful. Be strong. Always remember that with great power, comes great responsibility.”

Immediately Peter knew that he had to be Spider-Man again. Ben had wanted him to be a hero. Peter possessed great power within his small body and uncle Ben had written in his card that that alone gave him a great responsibility. So, Peter became Spider-Man again and Spider-Man would never let another person down the way he had let Ben down.  
So, Spider-Man took risks he probably shouldn’t, but he always came out okay and there were videos popping up of him saving the people of the city from all sorts of crime and danger. New York had a new hero, but Peter didn’t feel like a hero at all. 

May had slowly but surely regained some of her sunny disposition, she was baking again and even humming sometimes and Peter did his best to match his mood to hers. If there was one thing, he could do it was pretend to be okay, so he didn’t worry his aunt. So, Peter would go out after school and be Spider-Man, but he always came home in time to do his homework and have dinner with May before pretending to go to bed and sneaking out to be Spider-Man again.

Peter hadn’t thought about the Avengers or any Superheroes for a while. He’d been too busy saving his city and being a high school student so imagine his surprise when he came home one day and found Tony Stark sitting on the couch with his aunt. Tony had told them that Peter had won a spot in an internship and had then taken Peter side and proved that he knew Peter was the “Spiderling, or crime fighting spider,” and Peter had reluctantly come clean about it and explained to Mr. Stark that he felt, “When you can do the things I can do, and then the bad things happen, they happen because you you,” and then had somehow been talked into going to Germany to fight against Captain America and some of the other Avengers under the ruse of the internship. Against them. Peter was going to fight against the Avengers. He thought that was pretty crazy.  
Tony had spent some time with Peter after the fight in Germany and then dropped him off at his apartment telling he could keep the suit Tony had made him and that they’d call him if there was another mission. 

Peter was happy. Genuinely happy, for the first time since Ben had passes and it was all because Mr. Stark had found him and believed in him and had made him a suit and everything. So, Peter did his thing and waited for his next mission. He quickly realized that Mr. Stark was much to busy to talk to him and that Happy was really just annoyed by him and he could feel himself slipping back into his old guilt and depression. He wanted to keep being happy, like he’d been in Germany. He wanted to be an Avenger. He wanted to be like Mr. Stark. He just needed something to keep his mind occupied. Working with (and against some of) the Avengers had been the relief he’d been searching so long for.

Peter was crazy excited and a little terrified when the Vulture guy showed up and dropped him in the lake. Mr. Stark had sent a suit to save him and had told him to forget the Vulture guy. Of course, Peter didn’t listen. He’s fifteen and all he wanted to do was prove to Mr. Stark that he was capable of doing the hard stuff too. So once Ned found out that Peter was Spider-Man, the two of them teamed up to find the Vulture’s evil lair and stop his people from selling the weapons.   
It all went downhill from there. Peter removed the tracker from his suit and skipped academic decathlon to follow through with his plan. Nothing had gone right, and his teammates had almost died in a broken elevator, but Spider-Man got there in time to save them.

Then there was the ferry incident when Iron Man had had to show up to save the day and then Tony had stepped out Peter’s heart shattered, and he told Mr. Stark he had just wanted to be like him, but Tony said he had wanted him to be better. Tony told Peter that it wasn’t working out and he needed the suit back. Peter went home and tearfully told his aunt May that he’d lost the internship.So, Peter had no choice but to go back to being a normal teenager until his homecoming date’s dad had ended up being the Vulture guy and had figured out Peter was Spider-Man and then threatened him to stay away. Naturally, Peter did not stay away. He left Liz at the dance and after many painful hurtles and with the help of his guy-in-the-chair Ned, he was able to stop the Vulture from stealing all the equipment and weapons that was being moved to the new Avengers facility. 

Those events led to Happy liking Peter much more, Tony offering him a spot on the team, Peter turning him down and Tony giving him his suit back anyway.  
Peter had expected things to go back to how they were before Tony had recruited him for Germany but after a couple days, Tony had personally called Peter and invited him over to work in his lab and to train there. Peter had immediately agreed, and this became a regular thing. Peter would go over three days a week after school and all day every Saturday, as long as Tony wasn’t too busy, which he was sometimes, but Peter understood. 

Tony saw the genius in Peter and wanted to help him bring that out by working with him, but Tony hadn’t expected to care for the kid the way he did. Lab days turned into watching movies and having dinner and Peter showing Tony funny videos online. Soon Tony and Peter had become completely comfortable around each other and a father-son bond had formed between them. Neither acknowledged it, but they both knew. Each would do anything to protect the other. 

So, Peter had an Aunt. A best friend. A father-figure, and Spider-Man to thank for him being okay. He would never be over Ben. You don’t get over someone you loved, you just keep living. Peter would always ache with guilt and regret at the thought of his uncle’s untimely death, but he couldn’t go back and change it. The pain was a part of Peter now and he let it live inside of him, but he no longer let it consume and control him. Peter would live, he would make uncle Ben and everyone he loved, proud.

**Author's Note:**

> I promise the rest of the stories in this series will have actual dialogue and will be more unique as it won't be a retelling of events that have already taken place.
> 
> Disclaimer- Of course I don't own any of the characters or anything. They are the brilliance of the Marvel franchise.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
